


The importance of communication

by Shireith



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: A Little Bit of Humor, American Sign Language, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 20:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16353434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shireith/pseuds/Shireith
Summary: While the trio is staying at the winter house, Rayla finds herself to be very interested in Amaya and asks Callum a favour.





	The importance of communication

Callum and Ezran’s aunt was a real badass.

This was the very first impression Amaya had given Rayla. Now, Rayla was very interested in her. Amaya was the only human capable not only to fight her, but to actually defeat her. Rayla was reasonable enough to admit Amaya had won fairly, and this meant she was actually more skilled in combat than Rayla was. It didn’t bother her, though. On the contrary, Amaya was object of admiration, someone to look up to, someone worthy of her respect.

As Rayla kept observing Amaya with interest, Amaya did the same, with the difference that Amaya looked more suspicious. Maybe it was because Rayla was a Moonshadow Elf, or because she’d been staring at her for days. Probably both. Although her nephews were good friends with Rayla, Amaya didn’t seem quite into her.

As for Gren, he was more willing to accept Rayla in their life. He’d been friendly towards her since the day Ezran and Callum had assured him Rayla was harmless and had no intention to hurt anyone. Rayla was glad Gren didn’t have reservation about her anymore, but was not a huge fan of him either. 

Gren was... quite something. Loquacious. Yes, loquacious was the proper word to describe a guy like him. Rayla didn’t hate him, because hating him would be like hating a baby panda. Yet, there was no doubt he used to talk way to much. And considering he was a big mouth and Runaan hated big mouths, it was a miracle he hadn’t gone crazy, during the time the two of them had been held as prisoners by Viren. 

The five of them were gathered in the winter house. Ezran was sitting in an armchair close to the chimney and was talking about something Rayla wasn’t quite hearing. Instead, she would occasionally glance at Callum and Amaya in order to understand what they were saying. But even if she tried, she couldn’t—their gestures were unintelligible.

A couple of minutes later, when Amaya and Callum split up, Rayla smiled at Ezran and asked gently, “Sorry, Ezran, would you give me just five minutes?”

As the child nodded, Rayla stood up and went to Callum. He was now deeply focused in his art, but lifted his gaze the moment he saw Rayla with the corner of his eye. He raised an eyebrow and said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“How do you even understand her?” she demanded out of nowhere, nodding with her head at the door Amaya had walked through just the minute before.

Though not knowing why Rayla would care about it, Callum understood what she meant. “Oh, that. See, it’s not that hard,” he replied with a smile. “Actually, it’s a lot easier than it looks. You just have to practice a little until you get used to it.”

Rayla was more and more interested. “Would you teach me?”

Callum gave her a surprised look, but didn’t reply. Feeling like she’d asked him something dumb, Rayla quickly said, “You know what? Forget it. It was a stupid question.”

“No, _no_ ,” Callum replied. “It wasn’t. I’d love to teach you the sign language. I’m just surprised you want to learn.”

Rayla shrug her shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, well, some people find it, I don’t know, odd? Something like that.”

Rayla smiled as if it was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. “I think it’s cool. You get to learn new ways of communicating.”

Callum nodded in agreement. “Right? That’s what I always tell people.”

“And you get to insult people without them even noticing.”

“Well, that’s not—”

“I think your aunt would do that, but then Gren would be too kind to insult people and so he would just say nice things instead of translating your aunt’s words.”

“I highly doubt something like that would happen.”

“Gren?” Rayla called, ignoring Callum’s last statement as if he wasn’t even in the room.

Gren popped his head from behind the kitchen door. “Yes, Rayla?”

“Have you and Amaya ever used the sign language to make fun of some dummy who couldn’t understand you?”

“Rayla! They would never!”

“Well, there was this time Viren...”

Rayla gave Callum _the look_ (“I’m right and you’re wrong”). Callum pouted and didn’t reply.

_Oh, Gren._

***

Later that day, Callum fulfilled his promise to teach Rayla sign language. No one had ever asked him to do so, therefore it was the first time Callum had to educate someone about it. He tried to remember when, as a child, Amaya herself taught him in order to follow her steps.

Callum coughed two times, and Rayla wasn’t sure if he was trying to sound more mature or if he was just nervous. “First of all,” Callum began, his voice tone sounding oddly wise, “you should know that sign language is, as a matter of fact, as complex and complete as any other language.”

So it was the first one.

Rayla tried to hold her laugh as she decided not to point out that Callum was sounding ridiculous. “Callum?”

“Yes, Rayla?”

“There’s no need for you to use that tone.”

“What tone?”

“Well, you know, that tone. _The tone_. As if you were some kind of professor,” Rayla explained, trying not to hurt his feelings.

“You sound stupid, Callum,” Ezran intervened, approaching his brother in a more blunt way.

“Err—yes, that,” Rayla agreed.

“Oh,” Callum replied, trying not to seem overdramatic. “I see.” He decided to keep for himself the fact that he had practiced _the tone_ all morning and proceeded further. “As I was saying, sign language is a complete language. For starters, it has its own alphabet, of course. The process of using fingers to express letters in order to create words is called fingerspelling.”

Rayla raised her hand and examined it with great interest, as if she’d never had a hand until now. “So you can spell each letter of the alphabet only by using one hand?”

“Exactly,” Callum answered. “For example, this is A.” He made a fist and then moved his thumb over to the side of his hand.

Rayla duplicated his movements easily.

“Yes, like that. Now, this is B,” he continued, putting his fingers all straight up and then bending his thumb over his palm.

And just like that, they proceeded further as Rayla learned how to fingerspell each letter of the alphabet. Once they’d repetead all the process three times, she sighed, “They’re easy to learn, but hard to remember.”

“True,” Callum agreed, “and that’s why fingerspelling is mostly used to spell names of people, places, books, and stuff. But if you were to spell an entire sententence, it would be much difficult, not to mention that it would take ages. In order to communicate in a more practical way, people like aunt Amaya use hand movements.” As a first example, Callum showed her how to greet someone. He just moved his head over to his ear and extended it outward—this gesture meant “Hello”, he explained.

***

Since that day, practicing sign language with Callum—and sometimes Ezran, too—became a part of Rayla’s routine.

Then, about a week later, Amaya returned. Rayla had no idea where she’d been—she’d forgotten to ask Callum or Ezran—and thought it was better not to demand her. She could feel Amaya wasn’t quite into her and didn’t want to make things worse by looking invasive.

Rayla was the first one to see Amaya because the rest of the winter house was still asleep. Rayla was a morning person and used to oversleep almost never. She was outside, sitting in the front yard, when she saw Amaya arrive.

Amaya noticed her around the same time and gave her a thoughtful look.

 _Where are the others?_ she wanted to ask, but then reminded Rayla couldn’t understand her. So she took a piece of paper and wrote her question down. She could guess Rayla’s answer by reading her lips.

It was unexpected to see Rayla replying by using her hands. 

_They’re still asleep_ , she answered.

Amaya stared at her without making any movements. Then, about a few seconds later, she nodded while curving her lips up.

This was the very first time Amaya ever smiled to Rayla.

**Author's Note:**

> Talking about Amaya, I think that, while at first she would be cautious around Rayla, she’d become more trusty once she’d understood Rayla is harmless. And I think Rayla would definitely want to learn sign language. I’ve never met a deaf person, and I believe that in a fantasy world such as _The Dragon Prince_ ’s it would be even more unusual—or maybe not? I’m not sure.  
> Anyway, I believe Rayla is the kind of person who would be interested in learning a language she doesn’t understand. Personally, I am, and it’s the reason why I decided to write this fic. However, although I’m trying to educate myself about ASL (American Sign Language), I’m just getting started. In case any of you noticed something wrong, I wouldn’t mind at all to be corrected. This also applies to spelling and grammar errors, because English is not my mother tongue and I’m sure there are some. I would very much appreciate to know my mistakes in order to improve.


End file.
